UMaine News

Food insecurity addressed at Farmington summit, Sun Journal reports

The Sun Journal published a Livermore Falls Advertiser article on the second annual Greater Franklin Food Summit in Farmington. The event identified bright spots, challenges and opportunities facing the region’s food system, according to the article. David Fuller, an agricultural and nontimber forest products professional with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, defined a food system as an interconnected set of biological, technological, economic and social activities essential to survival. Keynote speaker Lynne Holland, a UMaine Extension community education assistant in Androscoggin and Sagadahoc counties, said food insecurity is an issue for everybody, not just the poor, and more people need to be engaged in the effort to combat it. “Maine is first in New England in food insecurity, seventh in the nation. One in five children go to bed hungry in Maine. 159,000 Maine seniors, or five times the population of Franklin County, experience food insecurity,” Holland said. “Food and nutrition aren’t the same. Lack of food, limited choices, distance to stores, transportation, limited programs for at-risk populations and a lack of education impact healthy eating habits at all levels of the population.”